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Title: The Gourmet's Guide to London
Author: Nathaniel Newnham-Davis
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THE
GOURMET'S GUIDE
TO
LONDON
BY
LIEUT.-COL.
NEWNHAM-DAVIS
Author of
"The Gourmet's Guide to Europe"
NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
1914
PRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
frontispiece
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE
From a drawing by Harry Morley
The pleasures of the table
are common to all ages and
ranks, to all countries and
times; they not only harmonise
with all the other
pleasures, but remain to
console us for their loss.—
Brillat Savarin.
TO ALL GOOD GOURMETS
PREFACE
In describing in this book some of the restaurants and taverns in and near London, I have selected those that seem to
me to be typical of the various classes, giving preference to those of each kind which have some picturesque incident in
their history, or are situated amidst beautiful surroundings, or possess amongst their personnel a celebrated chef or
maître d'hôtel.
The English language has not enough nicely graduated terms of praise to enable me to give to a fraction its value to each
restaurant, from the unpretentious little establishments in Soho to such palaces as the Ritz and Savoy, but I have
included no dining-place in this volume that does not give good value for the money it charges.
Twelve years ago I wrote a somewhat similar book, "Dinners and Diners," which ran through two editions, but when I
looked it through last year I found that there had been so many changes in the world of restaurants, so many old houses
had vanished and so many new ones had arisen, that it was easier to write a new book than to bring the old one up to
date. Mr Astor very kindly gave me permission to use in this volume any of the series of "Dinners and Diners" articles
that appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette, but it will be found that I have availed myself very sparingly of his kind
permission. The chapters of this book appeared, with very few exceptions, in Town Topics, and I am indebted to the
editor of that paper for his leave to gather them into book form.
[Pg ix]
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Mr Grant Richards, the publisher of this book, quite agrees with me that no advertisements of restaurants shall find a
place within its covers.
Should "The Gourmet's Guide to London" find a welcome from an appreciative public, and should, in due time, other
editions of it be called for, I shall hope to broaden its scope to include in it some of the hostelries of Brighton and other
seaside towns, also those of the great cities and great ports, and to describe some of those fine old country inns
scattered about the kingdom where good old English cookery is still to be found in good old English surroundings.
For the French of the menus I do not hold myself responsible. The kitchen writes the French that it talks and who am I,
a mere Briton, that I should attempt to alter it?
N. NEWNHAM-DAVIS.
CONTENTS
page
I OLD ENGLISH FARE
1
II SIMPSON'S IN THE STRAND
6
III A WALK DOWN FLEET STREET
12
IV THE CARLTON
19
V TWO LITTLE SOHO RESTAURANTS
26
VI A RAG-TIME DINNER
32
VII THE CAFÉ ROYAL
38
VIII OYSTER-HOUSES
46
IX WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH
53
X THE CECIL
59
XI CLARIDGE'S
67
XII THE EUSTACE MILES RESTAURANT
73
XIII THE PRINCES' RESTAURANT
81
XIV THE CRITERION
86
XV SOME CHOP-HOUSES
92
XVI SOME GRILL-ROOMS
99
XVIII IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
115
XIX A REGIMENTAL DINNER
122
XX "JOLLY GOOD"
128
XXI IN THE SHADOW OF THE PALACE THEATRE 134
XXII THE WELCOME CLUB
141
XXIII GOLDSTEIN'S
147
XXIV THE MITRE
152
XXV IN THE HANDS OF PI(E)RATES
158
XXVI APPENRODT'S
166
XXVII THE BURFORD BRIDGE HOTEL
174
XXVIII THE RITZ
180
XXIX SOME OUTLYING RESTAURANTS
190
XXX THE KING'S GUARD
195
XXXI THE OLD BULL AND BUSH
201
XXXII THE BERKELEY
206
XXXIII THE JOYS OF FOREIGN TRAVEL
214
XXXIV A SUPPER TRAIN
220
XXXV THE ADELAIDE GALLERY
226
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XXXVI THE COMPLEAT ANGLER
235
XXXVII ARTISTS' ROOMS
241
XXXVIII THE PICCADILLY RESTAURANT
249
XXXIX THE RENDEZVOUS
255
XL THE PALL MALL RESTAURANT
261
XLI IN JERMYN STREET
267
XLII THE MEN WHO MADE THE SAVOY
272
XLIII THE DUTIES OF A MAÎTRE D'HÔTEL
279
XLIV THE SAVOY TO-DAY
283
XLV THE RESTAURANT DES GOURMETS
290
XLVI THE MAXIM RESTAURANT
294
XLVII BIRCH'S
300
XLVIII A CITY BANQUET
308
XLIX THE CAVENDISH HOTEL
313
L THE RÉUNION DES GASTRONOMES
320
LI THE LIGUE DES GOURMANDS
325
LII THE CAVOUR RESTAURANT
333
LIII VERREY'S
338
LIV THE CATHAY RESTAURANT
345
LV THE WHITE HORSE CELLARS
353
LVI THE MONICO
360
LVII THE ITALIAN INVASION
365
LVIII THE HYDE PARK HOTEL
371
LIX YE OLDE GAMBRINUS
378
LX MY SINS OF OMISSION
384
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE
Frontispiece
to face page
M. ESCOFFIER
24
M. RITZ
184
JOSEPH CARVING A DUCK 276
MRS LEWIS
314
I
OLD ENGLISH FARE
When a foreigner or one of our American cousins, or a man from one of the Colonies, comes to England, the first
question he generally asks is: "Where can I get a typical good old English dinner?" Good old English fare is by no means
too abundant in London—and old English fare I would define as being the very best native material, cooked in the
plainest possible manner. We talk of English cookery, though it should really be termed British cookery, for Irish stew
and Welsh lamb, Scotch beef and cock-a-leekie soup, and even a haggis, can fairly be included in the comprehensive
term.
When men on short commons on an exploring expedition, or on a sporting trip, or on active service, talk of the good
things they will eat when they get home to England, the first idea that occurs to most of them is how delightful it will be
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to eat a good fried sole once again; and with fried sole may be coupled English bacon, for no bacon anywhere else in
the world is as good as that which the kitchenmaids fry in thousands of British kitchens. Perhaps the Channel sole and
the bacon of the Southern Counties, Oxford marmalade and Cambridge sausages belong to the home breakfast-table
more than to meals in the haunts of the gourmet, though the sole plays a most important part in many dinners, and the
Christmas dinner turkey would be unhappy without its accompanying sausages. It is, however, at lunch-time, the time of
pasties, puddings and pies, that old English cookery is seen at its best.
I do not know of any eating-house that makes a speciality of the mutton-chop pudding with oysters, that Abraham
Hayward praises so unrestrictedly, but now and again I meet in restaurants such good English dishes as Lancashire hot-
pot and gipsy pie, which is an admirable stew of chicken and cabbage; shepherd's pie, in which the minced meat is
covered with a well-browned layer of mashed potato, I am given sometimes at shooting luncheons. Toad-in-the-hole
and bubble-and-squeak are pleasant memories of my schoolboy days, but if some Frenchman, who has studied
Dickens, asked me where he could eat the stew described in "The Old Curiosity Shop," which consisted of tripe, and
cow-heel, and bacon, and steak, and peas and cauliflower, new potatoes and asparagus "all worked up together in one
delicious gravy," I should have to admit my inability to direct him. A fish pie is excellent at any meal, but a woodcock
pie or a snipe pudding, I think, should be reserved for the dinner-table. The pork-pie now seems sacred to railway
refreshment-rooms, picnics and race-courses. Oysters are real British fare, though other countries have learned from us
to appreciate them; but I fancy that the old Romans first taught the gentlemen who clothed themselves in woad
tattooings what delicacies they had waiting for them in their shallow waters. Oysters are admirable creatures when eaten
out of their deep shell, and they play their part well in oyster soup and scalloped oysters and oyster fries. And there are
many puddings and "made dishes" that would be incomplete without the presence of oysters in them. Jugged duck and
oysters is a good old British dish, and there are oysters in the majestic pudding of the Cheshire Cheese. I may perhaps
be allowed to suggest to some cooks who put the oysters into puddings and pies with the other raw materials that a
better way is to cook the dish, then remove the crust or paste, slip in the oysters, fix the crust again and cook till the
oysters are warmed through.
The typical British dinner most often quoted is that which the Lord Dudley of the thirties, a noted epicure, declared was
a dinner "fit for an emperor," and it runs thus: "A good soup, a small turbot, a neck of venison, duckling with green peas,
or chicken with asparagus, and an apricot tart." Of British soups turtle always takes precedence in the list of honour, but
as the turtle comes from Ascension or the West Indies, it can hardly claim to be a denizen of these islands. Hare soup
and mock turtle, mulligatawny, mutton broth and pea soup are distinctively British, though the curry powder in the
mulligatawny—a soup which takes its name from two Tamil words: Mŭllĭgă = pepper, and Tunni = water—comes, of
course, from India. Oxtail soup has a good British sound, but I fancy that French housewives first discovered the virtue
that there is in the tail of an ox.
Lord Dudley loved a turbot, but other judges of good British dinners sometimes give the preference to cod. Walker, of
"Original" fame, gave a Christmas Day dinner to two friends, and the fare he provided for them was: crimped cod, a
woodcock a man, and plum pudding. One of the most typical British dinners I have eaten was that which a gallant
colonel, who very worthily filled the mayoral chair at Westminster, used to give annually at the Cavour Restaurant. It
consisted of a large turbot, a sucking-pig nicely roasted, and apple pudding. Roast sucking-pig is a dinner dish better
understood in England than anywhere else in the world, except, perhaps, in China. When the Duke of Cambridge,
brother of George the Fourth, was entertained in princely fashion at Belvoir, and was shown the menu of a dinner on
which a great French chef had exhausted all his inventiveness, and was asked if there were any dishes not included in
the feast for which he had a fancy, answered that he would like some roast pig and an apple dumpling, both good
British dishes. His son, the Commander-in-Chief of our days, also had a liking for pork, and, at one time, word went
round the British army that at inspection lunches it was wise to give his Royal Highness pork chops. Of course, the
British army overdid it, and the old Duke had so many pork chops put before him in the course of a year that at last
their presence on the menu was far more likely to assist in the securing of an unfavourable report on a regiment than was
their absence. Gravy soup, a grilled sole, a boiled hen pheasant stuffed with oysters, and an open tart formed the
favourite dinner of a renowned gourmet of my acquaintance.
Of the made dishes that belong to British cookery, jugged hare, I think, has the leading place. Yorkshire pudding is as
British as Stonehenge is, and mince pies can claim to be to-day exactly what they were when the Puritans used to
preach against them. Marrow bones and Welsh rarebits, buck rarebits, and stewed tripe and onions are old British
supper dishes, but the early closing laws have killed the old-fashioned British supper in eating-houses.
Good British cookery in London has not fared well in its battle against the invasion of good French cookery, and the
number of houses which made a speciality of British fare has decreased woefully in the last twenty years. The old
Blanchard's and its half-a-crown British dinner is a memory of the past (for the new Blanchard's turned towards the
goddess A la), and the "Blue Posts" in Cork Street has been converted into a club. It was curious that the prosperity of
this typical old English house depended to a great extent on a German head waiter; for Frank, who had all the best
traditions of British cookery at heart, had served under the old Emperor Wilhelm in the great war, and had been
wounded by a French bayonet thrust. There were certain rules of the house that were excellent. One was that, no
matter what orders you might give beforehand, no fish was ever put near the fire until the man who had ordered it was
inside the building, which ensured it going to table cooked to the second; and another was that the steaks, which were a
great stand-by of the house, were cut from the mass of beef just in time to be transferred at once to the grill, thus
making sure that none of the juices should drain away.
But there are still some temples of British cookery left in Cockaigne, and to some of them presently I will direct your
[Pg 2]
[Pg 3]
[Pg 4]
[Pg 5]
steps.
II
SIMPSON'S IN THE STRAND
A wide entrance glowing with light, with Simpson's plain to see, on a wrought-iron sign above it, is in the great block of
the Savoy Hotel building in the Strand, for the new Simpson's, though it retains all its old associations and its old
manager and its old head cook—Mr Davey, the polite, white-haired little ruler of the roast, who wears a velvet cap,
and who for forty-six years has seen the joints turn before the vast open fire in the kitchen—is now under the rule of the
great organisation that controls the Savoy.
Come into the entrance hall, where you can give up your hat and coat to an attendant; though if you have been
accustomed all your life to take them into Simpson's you will still find in the dining-room stands on which to hang them.
The hall, with its marble pillars, white panels and groined roof, is light and airy; a staircase runs down from it to the
smoking-room, and another one runs up to the dining-rooms upon the first floor. There is a tobacconist's stall in it, and if
the door of the expense bar to one side be open you see through it shelves of bottles and flasks. Through the wide door
leading into the big dining-room you see white-jacketed waiters moving hither and thither, and white-coated and white-
capped carvers pushing the dinner waggons, crowned with big plated covers, before them, and as a background the
fine fireplace, with its carved wooden overmantel and its little marble pilasters, and a picture of a knight and lady of
Plantagenet days feasting let into the central space.
Mr N. Wheeler, the rosy-faced manager, white-haired, and wearing the frock-coat of ceremony, will probably greet
you as you go into the dining-room. He has seen all the various transformations of Simpson's Chess Divan, which was
originally Ries's Divan, and he probably knows more about good old English fare than any man living. When we have
eaten our turbot and saddle of mutton we will ask him how it is that these two best of British dishes are sent to table at
Simpson's in such absolutely perfect condition. But before we choose our seats at one of the tables let us look round
the room. The old Simpson's is still fresh in my memory. The painted garlands of flowers and studies of fish, flesh and
fowl on the walls, glazed to a deep rich colour by the London atmosphere, the ground-glass windows, the big bar
opening into the room, with Rembrandtesque shadows in its depths; the great dumb-waiter, which looked like a
catafalque, in the centre of the room; the folded napkins in the glasses on the mantelpiece; the horsehair-stuffed, black-
cushioned chairs and benches; the divisions with brass rails and dingy little curtains on the rails.
The pens with their brass rails are still in the old place, but they are modernised pens; the wood is oak, and there is a
comfortable padded back of brown leather to lean against. The eating-room has been transformed into a banqueting
hall. The walls are panelled with light oak, with pilasters to give variety, and an inlay of lighter wood at the corners of the
panels. There is a white frieze with good modelling on it, and round the white-clothed tables which fill but do not crowd
the floor space are chairs copied from a fine Chippendale example. A good old English clock is on a bracket, and fine
cut-glass lustre chandeliers hang from the ceiling. In old days the waiters at Simpson's were mostly British veterans, and
in the upstairs room Charles Flowerdew, the head waiter, a genial old soul who always offered his favourites amongst
the customers a pinch from his snuff-box, had a wealth of anecdotes about the great men of the Victorian era who were
habitués of Simpson's. The waiters of to-day are Britons, but they are young men, and if anyone has doubts whether
Englishmen properly trained can be as quick and silent in the service of a dining house as foreigners are, I would advise
the doubter to eat a meal at Simpson's and to watch how the waiters do their work. The boys who take round the
vegetables become in time full-blown serving-men. The waiters no longer wear the dress-coats, heroes of many clashes
with sauce-boats and plates of soup, which used to be the official garb of the British waiter. They wear white washing
jackets, with at the breast a little black shield, and on it the crest of the house—the knight of a set of chessmen. All the
tips are pooled, with the result that all the serving-men work for the general good.
And now to look at the bill of fare. There are no such foreign innovations as hors d'œuvre allowed at Simpson's, where
the only concessions to France are in the wine cellar and that little French rolls as well as household bread are in the
bread baskets. You can obtain a fish dinner of three kinds of fish for three and ninepence; but we will order just what
we feel our appetite demands, and take no account of set dinners. If your taste is for turtle soup, a plate of that luxury
will cost you three shillings, but, if one of the simpler British soups will content you, hare, pea, mock turtle, Scotch
hotch-potch, oxtail, giblet or mulligatawny are priced at one shilling or one and sixpence. Then comes the important
question of fish, and the choice really lies between a Sole Souchet, which Simpson's ought to write Zouchet, boiled
codfish and oyster sauce, and boiled turbot and lobster sauce—the last one of the dishes on which Simpson's prides
itself. Until I chatted with Mr Wheeler on the subject I always understood that a turbot to come to table in perfection
should be hung for several days, but Mr Wheeler denounces this as rank heresy. A turbot should be nicked to draw off
the blood of the fish, it should be soaked for twenty-four hours, and then it is ready to be boiled. It is instructive to
watch a real habitué of Simpson's who prefers cod to turbot when a portly white-clad carver wheels his waggon up to
the table. There must be the right proportion of liver with the fish and the due quantity of oyster in the sauce, or there
will be dire threats of report to higher quarters. A boiled potato to anyone who knows what is good English fare is not
to be accepted without criticism, and he would be a bold carver who dared to give the knowledgeable man a helping of
saddle of mutton without a slice of the brown. But before we go on to the supreme matter of the saddle let me point out
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[Pg 8]
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to you that whether you eat sole, or cod, or turbot, it means an item of two shillings on your bill.
The joints ring the changes on roast sirloin, boiled beef, boiled leg of mutton, roast loin of veal and bath chap, and
saddle of mutton, and it is the saddle that is the favourite dish. Forty saddles a day is the quantity consumed at
Simpson's, and now that the new room is opened sixty are required. Simpson's employs a buyer whose duty in life is to
travel about England buying saddles wherever the finest mutton is to be procured. For fourteen days the saddles hang in
the stock-room at Simpson's in a temperature of 38°, then they are moved for two or three days to another store,
through which there is a current of air, and then they are ready for the fire. And whether you eat of the mutton, the beef,
or the veal, your portion and the accompanying vegetables will cost you half-a-crown.
We will not trifle with such kickshaws as salmi of game, or Irish stew, or jugged hare, and to finish our dinner we will
take a helping of one of the pies or puddings on the bill of fare, or, better still, a good scoop of Stilton cheese or a
wedge of Cheshire.
If you wish to be as British in your drinking as in your eating, there is cool British ale from the cask, which comes to
table in a tankard, and cider, and the whisky of Scotland and that of Ireland. The house is also celebrated for its
moderate-priced Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, bottled in the cellars.
If we go upstairs before leaving we can see the dining-room to which ladies are admitted—a handsome room of white
with marble pillars—and you will notice the great bunches of wild flowers which adorn all the tables. On this floor there
is a smaller private banqueting-room, and the new white Adams' Room, the double windows of which look into the
Strand on one side and the entrance courtyard on the other. It is a handsome room, with settees by the window tables,
and at night hanging baskets and lamps on the cornice throw light up to the ceiling to be reflected down into the room.
Down in the smoking-room on the basement level you will find a little band of chess-players, faithful to the old Divan,
hard at the game, using the old chess-boards and the huge pieces of the Divan days, and it may further gratify your love
for antiquarian lore to know that Simpson's stands on the site occupied by the old Fountain tavern, of which Strype
wrote: "A very fine tavern, with excellent vaults, good rooms for entertainments, and a curious kitchen for the dressing
of meat." It was at the Fountain that the opponents of Walpole held their meetings and that the Earl of Derwentwater
and the other Jacobite lords on trial for rebellion, being taken daily backwards and forwards between the Tower and
Westminster, made favour with their jailer to let them halt for an hour to eat what they expected to be their last good
dinner on earth.
III
A WALK DOWN FLEET STREET
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE
Doctor Samuel Johnson stands in bronze before St Clement Danes and faces his beloved Fleet Street. If the great
dictionary maker took his eyes off the book he holds in his hands, got down from his pedestal without knocking over
the inkpot which is perilously near his clumsy old feet, and started for a walk down the street he loved so well, his
remarks on the changes that have been made by time and the architects would be instructive. What would he say to
Street's Law Courts? And with what sesquipedalian words would he lament the disappearance of Temple Bar and the
appearance in its stead of the pantomime Griffin? And how the old man would snort and fume to find the taverns he was
used to frequent altered out of recognition, or moved from their old places. The Rainbow's lamp would bring him to a
halt, for the Rainbow stands to-day where Farr the barber set up his coffee-house, "by inner Temple Gate." Farr was
"presented," in 1657, as an abuse by his neighbours, who protested against the smell of the coffee, but were in reality
afraid that the new drink was going to oust canary and other wines. Johnson knew the old tavern in the brave days
when Alexander Moncrieff was the host, when it still, though its "stewed cheeses" and its stout were celebrated, called
itself a coffee-house, and the largest room was the coffee-room, with a lofty bay-window at the south end looking into
the Temple. In this bay the table was set for the worthies who frequented the house, and they could, through a glazed
screen, see all that went on in the kitchen. The old Doctor, reading on the door-jamb that the Rainbow is occupied by
the Bodega Company, would discourse learnedly on the meaning and uses of a Bodega. He would note with approval
Groom's little coffee-house, a few steps farther on, which, though it did not exist in his days, for it dates back only to
1818, is one of the few establishments still existing which lives by the sale of coffee as a beverage, and prospers on its
best Mocha at threepence a cup.
The Cock in its present condition would puzzle the old man most consumedly, and he would look across the street to
see what has become of that tavern's old site; but if he went inside the house he would find that Grinling Gibbons'
wood-carving of the cock had flown across the street, and that in the upper room is the panelling from the old alehouse
in which the festive Pepys drank and sang and ate a lobster and afterwards "mightily merry" took Knip for a moonlight
row on the Thames. It would be useless to talk to the Doctor of Tennyson and the plump head-waiter of the Cock, but
pilgrims following the footsteps of those poets who have lunched in Fleet Street will find that the Cock is still a house
where the "perfect pint of stout" and the "proper chop" are reached out with deft hands to customers, and that no head
waiter unless he be plump is ever engaged for the upper room.
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The Devil Tavern, which Ben Jonson made so famous by his Apollo Club, and which stood between Temple Bar and
the Middle Temple Gate, was bought by Messrs Child, the bankers, in 1787, some years after the death of Samuel
Johnson, when it had fallen into disuse, and was pulled down and dwelling-houses erected on its site. Ben's "Welcome"
and the Apollo bust were transferred to the bank. The most famous of all the Johnsonian taverns, the Mitre, was
another of the old houses to fall a victim to bankers, for four years after the Doctor's death it ceased to be a tavern,
became in turn Macklin's Poets' Gallery and Saunders's auction-rooms, and was finally pulled down that on its site
"Hoare's New Banking-house" should be erected. Joe's Coffee-house in Mitre Court borrowed the derelict name when
the Mitre closed its shutters, and set up a copy of Nollekins' bust of the Doctor as homage to his memory.
Opposite to Wine Office Court, the Sage of Fleet Street would stop in his shamble and would wait for an opportunity
to cross the road. If Doctor Johnson hated the transit of the roadway when the traffic was but of hackney carriages and
the coaches of aldermen and stage coaches and horsemen, how would he face the hurtling streams of taxi-cabs and
motor omnibuses which nowadays jostle in the road? And what, when he had crossed the road, would he think of
Fuller's little sweet-stuff shop which, gay with colour, has fastened itself, where there used to be a dingy wine
merchant's office with cobwebbed bottles of old port in its dim, solemn windows, on the Fleet Street front of the Old
Cheshire Cheese? The new-comer looks like a bright stamp stuck on some musty old parchment deed. Doctor Johnson
would, I am sure, growl as he rolled through the narrow entrance into the court and on to the door of the old tavern.
And as he and you and I stand in the narrow doorway and look to the right at the little bar, a harmony in dark colours
with the old china punch-bowls in their accustomed corner, and glass and pewter and silver catching reflections of light
amidst the black of old oak; and to the left at the old dining-room kept exactly as it was in Doctor Johnson's time; and
to the front at the old oak staircase leading to the rooms above, let me explain to you that each white-haired generation
of frequenters of the Cheshire Cheese finds fault with the arrangements made for the newer generation. When Johnson
and Goldsmith ceased to use the house I am sure that the comfortable gentlemen who had sat at the long table and had
listened to their conversation found that of an evening the talk had grown dull; and when Colonel Lawrence, who had
carried one of the colours of the 20th Regiment at the battle of Minden, had been a crony of Goldsmith, and had
hobnobbed with him and with Johnson over the port at the Cheese, died, the company at the long table must have
lamented that all the "good old sort" and the good old customs were passing away. A sturdy supporter of the Cheese,
who is some fifteen years older than I am, sighs for the days when he was first allowed to sit at the table where the
Deputy-Governor of Newgate and a head clerk of Somerset House led the conversation. And when I go into the
Cheese nowadays and find that two score belles from Baltimore, or half-a-hundred pretty Puritans from Philadelphia,
have taken possession of the lower room, are drinking tea with their lunches, are talking like an aviary in commotion,
and are more intent on buying souvenirs of Johnson than on appreciating the delights of the pudding, I sigh for the days
thirty years ago when the Cheese was a grumpy man's paradise. I am quite sure that when Mr Dollamore, a host of the
Cheese who has grown to heroic size as seen through the mists of time, died, people of that day thought that the great
pudding would never again be mixed and carved by a master hand. I look back now to the serious expression, the sort
of expression we all assume as we enter a church door, that used to come upon the face of smiling Mr Moore as the
vast pudding was carried in and he prepared to pierce its snowy covering. When Henry Todd, a waiter who entered
Mr Dollamore's service two years before the battle of Waterloo, left the house and his portrait was painted by
subscription and given as an heirloom to be hung in the dining-room, no one believed that young William Simpson, then
just entering the service of the Cheese, would live to be even a more famous head waiter, to have his portrait painted to
be hung in honour in the coffee-room, and to give his name to one of the rooms upstairs.
And now, having explained that if an old frequenter of the Cheshire Cheese sometimes grumbles at changes it is only
through affection for the old house, let us go into the dining-room and sit down and look around us. We will leave
Doctor Johnson's seat at the long table, with its brass tablet and his portrait above it, for the Shade of the great man.
You shall sit in Oliver Goldsmith's seat with your back to the windows looking out into Cheshire Cheese Court, roofed
in now to make a second dining-room; I will sit opposite to you, and we will take note of our surroundings. The
approval of the old Doctor can be safely guaranteed. The sawdust on the floor; the wide grate with a shining copper
kettle on the hob; the old mirror; the churchwarden pipes on the window-sill; the green-curtained cosy corner by the
door, just like the squire's pew in many old churches; the black-handled knives and forks arranged in a row of black
oak hutches; the willow-patterned plates and dishes; the queer old receptacle for umbrellas in the middle of the floor;
the wire blinds, and the old tables and oak high-backed settles are to-day exactly as they were when Johnson in the
flesh frequented the tavern. The "greybeard" and the leathern jack, gifts from Mr Seymour Lucas, R.A., are quite in
keeping with the room, and such of the pictures as are not old deal with incidents in Johnson's life or are sketches of the
room and of the worthies who have frequented it. The manager of to-day keeps the house just as it used to be a century
and a half ago, and being so, it is one of the most interesting old buildings in London.
Upstairs are the kitchen, where the woman cook responds to the verbal shorthand shouts of the waiters by putting
chops and steaks on to the grill and clanging the oven door as good things to bake go into its recesses, and other old
rooms, in which are some interesting relics of the old lexicographer, the chair in which he always sat at the Mitre, and
other things curious and quaint, but they must await inspection till after lunch, for to-day is a pudding day, and the fat
waiter with a moustache is waiting for our orders.
The pudding in its great earthenware bowl stands on a little table in the middle of the room. It is a triumph of old British
cookery. In it are larks, kidneys, oysters, mushrooms, steak, and there are ingredients in the gravy which are a secret of
the house. There are many imitations of the Cheshire Cheese pudding, but no such pudding unless it comes from the
Cheshire Cheese kitchen has quite the right taste and quite the right richness of gravy. There is no stint in the helpings at
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the Cheshire Cheese. Any man with an appetite has only to ask for a "follow" to obtain it, and there are traditions that
some men of mighty capacity have even had three helpings. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are pudding days. There
is generally Irish stew on non-pudding days, and the Cheese Irish stew is admirable. Marrow bones are another
speciality of the house, and a Cheshire Cheese bone holds much marrow. The typical Cheshire Cheese meal, however
—and I am sure Doctor Johnson would agree with me—is The Pudding, and the strong Scotch ale of the house
therewith; stewed cheese, which comes to table in a shallow little pan accompanied by hot toast, and to finish up a bowl
of the Cheshire Cheese punch served from an old china bowl with a good old-fashioned silver ladle. But beware of
drinking too much of this punch, being deceived by its apparent innocence. I know one man who, saying it was as mild
as mother's milk, drank the greater portion of a bowl of punch, remarked that he was a boy again, and behaved as a
boy, and not until noon next day came to the conclusion that he was a very elderly man with a headache.
IV
THE CARLTON
If all the great French chefs all the world over were canvassed for an opinion as to which amongst them is the greatest
cook of the day, I am sure that the majority of votes would be in favour of M. Auguste Escoffier, the Maître-Chef of
the Carlton Restaurant in London. When any restaurant is exceeding successful, whether it appeals to popular taste, or
to the taste of the most cultured classes, there is sure to be amongst those men who have brought it fame or brought it
popularity, some strongly marked personality, a great organiser, a great cook, or, perhaps, a great maître d'hôtel, such
as poor dead Joseph was. And the commanding personality at the Carlton is M. Escoffier, who, had he been a man of
the pen and not a man of the spoon, would have been a poet, and who, wearing the white cap and the white jacket,
makes the sense of taste respond to the beautiful things he invents, just as the sense of hearing thrills to the cadence of a
poet's words, or the melody of a great composer's music. And M. Escoffier holds that things which are beautiful to the
taste should be fair to the eye, and should have pleasant-sounding titles. He, for instance, rechristened frogs, making
them "nymphes," and nymphes à l'Aurore has a place in his great book on modern cookery.
The following is a typical Escoffier menu. It is for a little supper after the Opera, and was published in Le Carnet
d'Epicure, a magazine, to the pages of which M. Escoffier is a prolific contributor.
Gelée de Poulet aux Nids d'Hirondelles.
Soufflé d'Ecrevisses Florentine.
Côtelettes d'Agneau de Lait Favorite.
Petits Pois Frais.
Ortolans au Champagne.
Salade d'Oranges.
Asperges de Serre.
Pêches à la Fraisette des Bois.
Baisers de Vierge.
Mignardises.
The menu reads as delicately as the dishes would taste. The baisers de Vierge are twin meringues, the cream perfumed
with vanilla and holding crystallised white rose leaves and white violets. Over each pair of meringues is a veil of spun
sugar. This is worthy of the man who conceived the bombe Nero, a flaming ice, who gave all London a new entremet
in fraises à la Sarah Bernhardt, and who added a new glory to a great singer by creating the pêche Melba.
M. Escoffier is a little below the middle height, grey haired, and grey of moustache. His face is the face of an artist, or a
statesman, and the quick eyes tell of his capacity for command. The quiet little man who, amidst all the clangour of the
great white-tiled kitchen below the restaurant of the Carlton, seems to have nothing to do except to occasionally glance
at the dishes before they leave his realm or to give a word of counsel when some very delicate entremet is in the
making, to taste a sauce or give a final touch to the arrangement of some elaborate cold entrée, has organised his
brigade of vociferous cooks of all nations as thoroughly as Crawford organised the Light Division of Peninsular fame.
There is never any difficulty, for every difficulty has been foreseen. Only a man who has climbed the ladder from its
lowest rung possesses such knowledge and such authority. M. Escoffier began his career as a boy in the kitchen of his
uncle's restaurant in Nice. He went to Russia to the kitchen of one of the Grand Dukes, he served in the Franco-
Prussian War as the Chef de Cuisine to the General Staff of the Army of the Rhine, and he knows the bitterness of
captivity in the hands of an enemy. He was with Maréchal MacMahon at the Elysée and left the Grand Hotel at Rome
when Ritz and he and Echenard came to London to make history at the Savoy. He writes with a very pretty wit on
subjects connected with his profession, and he is married to a lady who, under her maiden name of Delphine Daffis, is
well known in France as a poetess, and who has recently been decorated with the violet ribbon as Officier d'Académie.
If I have given so much space to a sketch of the great Maître-Chef, it is not that he is the only man of talent amongst the
personnel of the Carlton. M. Kreamer, the manager, is eminent amongst his fellows. In the restaurant M. Besserer, light
of hair, and with a light curling moustache, is an admirable Maître d'Hôtel, and the Carlton grill-room (to which I shall
give attention when I write of the grill-rooms of London) owes much of its popularity to its manager, Signor Ventura.
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And now for a little ancient history. Her Majesty's Opera House, with a colonnade surrounding it in which were shops
and a little restaurant, Epitaux's, where the Iron Duke and other famous men gave dinner-parties in the early Victorian
days, stood at the corner of the Haymarket and Pall Mall. If I wrote of the glories and the disasters of the big house of
song I should have to write a book. When a company bought the site, and the Carlton and His Majesty's Theatre rose
on it, the colonnade disappeared from three sides, and all the shops on those sides also vanished except the offices of
Justerini and Brooks. These wine merchants held to their old position, and their window front was encased in the
building of the new hotel without the business of the firm suffering a day's interruption. A cigar store has since then found
an abiding place on the Pall Mall frontage. The name of Epitaux's was taken by the restaurant next door to the
Haymarket Theatre, but was eventually dropped in favour of a more attractive title, the Pall Mall.
The tall porter outside the entrance of the Carlton in Pall Mall sets the swing door in motion to let us through; coats and
hats, cloaks and furs are garnered from us as we pass through the ante-room, and then we are in the palm lounge, that
happy inspiration of the architect which has been copied in other hotels through the length and breadth of the habitable
world. The double glass roof, letting in light but keeping out draughts, was a novelty when the hotel was built. But,
though this palm court has been copied far and wide, it has never been bettered. The terrace breaks up pleasantly the
great width of floor space. The tall palms, and the flowers and smaller palms before the terrace, and the green cane
easy-chairs give a sylvan touch to this great hall in the heart of London; and, as an instance of perfect taste, notice the
little medallions of Wedgwood ware dependent from the capitals of the creamy marble pilasters.
Up the broad flight of steps we go into the restaurant, a restaurant the colouring in which is such that it never clashes
with the hues of any lady's dress. The garlands of golden leaves on the ceiling, the artful use of mirrors and evergreens
to give the illusion that outside the windows north and west there are gardens, the cut-glass chandeliers converted into
electroliers, and giving a soft rosy light, the brown and deep rose of the carpet, the lighter rose of the chairs, the gilt
cornice, the œil de bœuf windows towards the palm lounge, all form a perfect setting for charming people eating
delicate foods. The keynote of the restaurant in decoration, as in the dinners which come from Escoffier's kitchen, is
refinement. It is a pity, perhaps, that there is not daylight to brighten the restaurant from end to end, and that the electric
lamps are always alight; but at dinner-time this is no drawback. An excellent string band plays on the terrace, but it is as
well at dinner-time to choose a table far enough away from the musicians to ensure comfortable converse.
And now to describe to you a typical Carlton dinner. It is not easy, for I have so many memories of so many typical
dinners there. Once the annual banquet of my old regiment was held at the Carlton in a great space of the restaurant
screened off from the other diners. That was a noble feast! Again a memory comes to me of a silver wedding dinner, for
which the table was decorated with creamy white and light pink roses, with silvered leaves. Escoffier composed for the
occasion a dinner all white and pink, in which the Bortch was the deepest note of colour, the filets de poulets à la
Paprika halved the two hues, and the flesh of an agneau de lait formed the highest light in the picture. That was the
second occasion on which M. Escoffier sent to a dining-table the pêches Aiglon, the first occasion being a supper
which Madame Sarah Bernhardt gave to Sir Henry Irving and other stars of our stage.
But most distinctive of all the dinners of ceremony at which I have been a guest at the Carlton was the dinner which Mr
William Heinemann, the well-known publisher, gave to celebrate the publication by his firm of Escoffier's great work,
"A Guide to Modern Cookery." The dinner was the idea of the Maître-Chef, who suggested that the best way to
criticise the book would be to invite some of the men in whose judgment the publisher had faith to eat a dinner cooked
by the man who had written the book. We were fourteen in all, mostly "ink-stained wretches," and amongst the
signatures on the menu, which I religiously pasted opposite the title-page of my autographed copy of the work, are
those of Sir Douglas Straight and of T. P. O'Connor, of a member of the great house of Harmsworth, and of other men
whose palates are as keen as their pens.
This was the menu of the dinner and the list of the wines we drank that 30th May 1907:
Melon Cantaloup.
Caviar de Sterlet.
Tortue Claire.
Velouté Froid de Volaille.
Mousseline d'Ecrevisses Orientale.
Jeune Agneau Piqué de Sauge.
Morilles à la Crème.
Petits Pois à l'Anglaise.
Poularde Ena.
Trou Normand.
Cailles aux Raisins.
Asperges d'Argenteuil.
Pêches Sainte Alliance.
Mignardises.
Vins.
Vodka.
Amontillado, Dry.
Berncastler Doctor, 1893.
Heidsieck and Co., Dry, 1892.
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Pommery and Greno, Nature, 1900.
Château Lafitte, 1878.
Dow's Port, 1887.
Café Double—Grandes Liqueurs.
Escoffier photo
M. ESCOFFIER
The velouté froid is a test dish, for only a master hand can give it the right consistency without allowing it to become
pasty. The mousselines were beautifully light, each in the form of a cygnet, surrounding a central figure of a swan. The
poularde Ena was the one dish in the banquet to which, because of its richness, I kissed my hand and passed it by.
The combination of quails and grapes is one of M. Escoffier's happiest inspirations, and the pêches Ste Alliance is one
of those delicate entremets in which Escoffier excels any other great chef of to-day, or of the past. The trou Normand
is rather a violent stimulus to appetite, and consists of a liqueur-glass of old brandy. When M. Escoffier came with the
coffee, to ask us what our verdict was on his dinner, our only difficulty was to find a sufficiency of complimentary
adjectives.
V
TWO LITTLE SOHO RESTAURANTS
AU PETIT RICHE. MOULIN D'OR
There is a little restaurant in Old Compton Street, the Au Petit Riche, with the outside of which I was acquainted for
some years before I put foot inside it. It so evidently kept itself to itself that I felt that my presence might be resented. It
has little casemented windows in white frames, and inside the windows are muslin curtains, on a rail, hung sufficiently
high to prevent anyone from looking over them. Below the windows are green tiles, and above it a stretch of little panes
of bottle-glass in white frames to give additional light to the rooms inside. A little ground-glass lantern hung outside the
door, and the name of the restaurant was painted over the window, but there was no bill of fare put up outside, no
attempt to draw in a diner unless he had made up his mind to dine at the Au Petit Riche and nowhere else. I had been
told all about the restaurant by those gallant souls who experiment at every new eating-place that springs up between
Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street, and though all I heard about the little place was pleasant and interested me, I
felt that the Petit Riche was not anxious to make my acquaintance. But when the Petit Riche put up outside its windows
an illuminated sign and its number, 44, in big figures, I felt that it had abandoned its haughty reserve and was beckoning
to me, and the rest of London, to come in. And in I went, and have been going in at intervals ever since, for the little
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restaurant is artistic and French and amusing.
When you open the glazed door and go in you are faced by the question: "On the level or down below?" A door to the
right leads into the little series of rooms on the ground floor, and a flight of stairs plunges down into the basement.
Come, first of all, through the door to the right. We are in the first of three little rooms, with light-coloured walls. A row
of small tables is on either side of each room, and in the first room a white desk, with palms on it, faces towards the
door. A score of pretty little French waitresses, Bretonnes all, in white and black, are bustling about, and
Mademoiselle, if she is not sitting at the white desk, will probably receive you at the door and smile and pilot you to a
table. And I should, before going any further, explain to you who Mademoiselle is, and tell you the story of the Au Petit
Riche. A good Breton and his wife came to London and established a little restaurant in Old Compton Street, and with
them came their two very pretty daughters. And they made the Au Petit Riche a corner of Brittany in London. The chef,
who had graduated at the Escargot d'Or, a big bourgeois house near the Halles in Paris, is a Breton by birth, and all the
merry little waitresses are from Brittany. The elder of the two daughters married a young journalist and for a while left
the restaurant, but when her father and mother thought that the time had come for them to retire, she and her husband
took up the management of the restaurant, with her sister to help them. And Mademoiselle, fresh and smiling, with a
bunch of roses pinned to her blouse, is in command in the upper rooms, while Madame, as gracious as she is
handsome, sits at her desk in one of the lower rooms with a great bowl of flowers before her, and laughs with the young
artists, who form a large portion of the clientele of the Au Petit Riche, and controls the waitresses, and sends the
waiters, of whom there are two, out to fetch the wine, which comes from a wineshop a few paces away.
Established at a table in the first of the upstairs rooms, a glance at the walls will tell anyone that the place is a haunt of
artists, for the pictures are just the omnium gatherum of artistic trifles that an artist generally puts on the walls of his den.
Pencil drawings, rough things in charcoal, etchings, mezzotints, caricatures, sketches in colour, Japanese coloured prints
—a gallery of scraps at which a Philistine would turn up his nose, but which look comfortable and homelike to the eye
artistic. And at the head of the carte du jour, which a little waitress holds out to you, there is a good black and white of
the exterior of the little restaurant—there is the atmosphere of art about the place.
Let us look down the list of dishes and order our dinner. The little waitress, on chance, has addressed us in French, but
if she is answered in English can carry on a conversation in that language. There are two soups on the list, consommé
Colbert, which costs sixpence, no doubt because of the egg, and crème Cressonière, which costs only threepence,
and we will choose the cheaper of the two. Amongst the fish dishes, the salmon and the sole cost a shilling, but we will
choose the vol au vent de Turbot Joinville, which costs ninepence. Amongst the entrées is an item, two quails en
Cocotte, for a shilling. Curiosity prompts me to suggest that we should order this, having in mind what the price of a
single...
